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Hello there
Before your insomnia, what did you do if you couldn’t sleep? Did you lie in bed? Then do exactly that. If you never got out of bed and forced yourself to “like” wakefulness, because everyone here said so, then it is not going to work because it reinforces to your body that you have a problem to fix and you will only end up getting more frustrated.
Bouts of sleeplessness are no stranger because it happens periodically to everyone. The difference this time, you start registering it’s a “problem out of nowhere”, and it needs to be “fixed”. Well, the problem is, there is no effective fix that you are aware of because you haven’t thought there was a problem before and therefore it was always left “unresolved”. You then become confused and frustrated this time, when everything you try seems not to work. More sleep efforts could only mean more frustration.
Sleep never was something you could control. It was something you allowed. Could you explain exactly what is going on, from the process of lying in bed until falling asleep, going through the stages of sleep, and then waking up? If you could not, then why delegate this monumental task to yourself when you have next to no idea how it really works?
You can never argue or frustrate your way out of insomnia. Your body is emotional so it will also not respond to reason. It responds only to routine (such as having a regular bedtime) and also by “observing” how you respond. Having a regular bedtime schedule is usually all that is needed to get sleep back on track. If you are calm, gentle, patient and disciplined with whatever you are faced with, exactly how you responded pre-insomnia, no matter how unpleasant they make you feel now, then your body will see this, start normalizing every unpleasant thought or emotion, you will end up doing pretty well and the whole thing will pass over, like before. Good luck.
Waking up is okay. It’s also normal. Because even normal sleepers wake up before their alarms!
Be okay with waking up. Expect and welcome them even! How you respond shapes your recovery. If you keep reacting explosively and keep thinking that waking up is frightful and needs to be avoided at all costs, then you will continue to struggle. But if you respond gently and continue to be calm, patient and disciplined, there is almost no way you can’t recover.
Do something fun with nighttime wakefulness. Do you lie in and just get comfortable? Or get up and do something else enjoyable? That is entirely up to you, a good baseline is to do what you always did before your insomnia. Just having a regular bedtime schedule is almost always all that’s needed for recovery.
Good luck and I hope you overcome your struggles soon.
Hello and welcome to the forum
If you realize clock watching increases your stress about not sleeping well, so why not stop?
Oh no, please don’t fight it. That is actually quite normal. I sleep well, but I get these too, it is a sign that your sleep system is healthy and your nervous system is desensitized enough to allow natural relaxation to take over. Don’t misinterpret this as sleep deprivation because it isn’t. It could be a sign you are simply too bored and unmotivated. Think being stuck in a boring movie, meeting or lecture. Getting up and engaging in some light physical work often works. Or you could lie down and actually take a nap.
Hi and welcome!
First of all, I am very sorry to hear about your current condition. But a few things to go over here:
1. If you have a medical condition, such as tinnitus, seeking medical attention is the most appropriate way to address it.
2. You may have a mental health condition in addition to your sleep struggles. In that, seeking professional advice is also the most appropriate. Unfortunately, nobody in this forum is able dispense advice regarding a medical issue such as tinnitus or a mental one like psychosis.
3. In regards to your sleeping problems, there is nothing much anyone else can do about it either. You should just follow a regular sleeping schedule and usually, physiologically that is all that is needed. The mental aspect is a bit more different, and harder, but the key is to lower stress and even accepting a bit of stress, which is crucial in making significant progress. Ultimately, you want to be in a position where you are convinced sleeping problems are not even real or physiological in a sense, because your body can sleep, under any circumstances. If your sleep was completely broken, there will be zero sleep all the time (and people will usually be dead within a few months of zero sleep and will not have endured years like you have) and certainly not sleeping 1-2 hours here and there. The stress of thinking you are not getting enough is preventing your body from achieving that normal, peaceful rest.Saying “you surrender” is usually not enough, especially when you don’t really mean it. It actually means you are still struggling.
Admitting “defeat” from a recovery context, actually comes from a position of confidence and conviction (you just know that is the most effective way forward), and not from a position of weakness and fear. There’s the difference.
Good luck to you and I hope you overcome your struggles soon.
“I can just lay there and relax and eventually I go back to sleep.” – So what’s wrong with that response? And why is being woken up even a problem at all?
What would you do if sleep wasn’t a factor? If you haven’t got insomnia? Or pre-insomnia, what would you have done?
Then do exactly that. Show your brain that sleep, or a lack of it, which is often temporary, is nothing to be concerned about.
Hello and welcome
I think there is a lot of self-blaming and a relentless drive to seek perfection in everything going on there. Things like;
1. How am I supposed to…
2. I feel comfortable for 2 mins and then this and that happens…
3. I have a ton of things going on
4. I have 5 kids etc etc…
5. How am I supposed to sleep with all that going on??The reality is there is no perfect moment in life. There is no perfect time or condition for sleep. There is no perfect sleep even. Nothing is perfect and being okay with imperfections is okay. There is perfection even in imperfections when you no longer actively try to correct things or seek quick fixes. Many things are beyond your control, sleep being one of them. You just get on with life. As you keep moving on, sleep just slips into the background. You no longer worry about it. You no longer think about it. Maybe not as much. And that is what recovery looks like. Just keep moving on, showing up and doing things.
It also means normalizing everything no matter how difficult they seem. Sensations, feelings and thoughts. Things like poor sleep. Butterflies in stomach. Heart racing. Mind in overdrive. Feeling horrible. Etc etc etc. You accept that everything is normal and there’s nothing to worry about. At the end of the day, these are just thoughts or feelings. They don’t matter so much and they keep changing constantly. It’s just not helpful to keep focusing on them all the time. Good luck.
Yes people often improve even after their cbti course has ended.
Very often, it is when you no longer think about it as much. You are no longer chasing a target. Life takes hold and other things take precedence. Sleep just fades into the background and a perceived lack of it is no longer considered an imminent threat or danger. You just move on with your life and become preoccupied with other things.
All insomnia problems are the same. Everyone’s insomnia is the same. You are completely discounting the possiblity of change. Change happens all the time. Your cells renew all the time so everything can reset, including your sleep system. It is robust enough to survive anything including nights of not sleeping and all kinds of stress you find yourself in, including extreme stress over poor sleep.
Try not to focus too much on sleep at this time. Enjoy the other aspects of going to bed. Getting comfortable in a comfortable bed and snuggling under the comfortable sheets. Having a roof over your head. Living in a safe home in a safe neighborhood with caring neighbors and family. These are aspects all insomniacs ignore because they are overly focused on one aspect: sleep, sleep, sleep. Leave it alone and your insomnia will leave you alone. Don’t chase it, let it chase you!
Your sleep system will reset when you consistently keep to a regular bedtime schedule. Start feeling the joy of feeling sleepy again. You will begin nodding off sometime before bedtime or anytime during the day. Don’t be alarmed, this is a sure-fire sign your sleep system is working perfectly. As you sleep better, you will start waking up more as well, don’t be alarmed either, this is another sure-fire sign of sleeping well. In the end, stop focusing obsessively on sleep and you will recover. Be patient, don’t set a target or deadline. It will work itself out, just trust the process. Have you any idea how your body makes you sleepy or fall asleep?? What, how, when and why. Can you give comprehensive answer how sleep works? If you can’t, then why are taking on the heavy responsibility of micro managing it when you have next to no idea how it works? In the end, everyone will have to leave it alone because nobody can or ever control it anyway!
Do not believe what your mind is telling you. This is what everyone who recovered eventually found out. Your mind is only trying to keep you safe and thinks poor sleep is bad and extremely dangerous, the narrative your mind keeps presenting to you, is like you are trying to sleep inside a lion’s den, but it is not! So in a way, insomnia is a state of confusion where your mind cannot tell between a real and perceived threat (but the perceived threat is actually safe and just a false alarm) Because you are sleeping in perhaps the safest place in the world, in your own bed in your own home and surrounded by people who love and cherish you.
You and indeed many people can break out of this cycle often by slowly disbelieving what your monkey mind keeps telling you. This is often called creating a distance between you and your own thoughts. Eventually, you don’t take them seriously anymore, you just let them flow away like leaves being carried away by currents in a stream, as thoughts and feelings are temporary in nature, and they change all the time so it’s never productive to keep entertaining them. Eventually, you settle down and accept these unhelpful thoughts as your mind pinging you with useless crap and you are no longer afraid of them. You might even laugh at yourself at the end of this!
Sleep is independent of thoughts. You can think about anything or be scared of anything or take meds but sleep will always happen in the end. Sleep only responds to routine not thoughts or efforts. Getting into and out of bed at regular times is all you need to beat insomnia. And consistency plus discipline remains key. Instead of seeking to keep running away from the discomfort, go the other way and actually get comfortable with any discomfort. If you do these steps, slowly but surely, there is almost no way you won’t recover because millions have. Slowly leaving this state of fear and confusion will inevitably lead to liberation and recovery. Good luck.
Hello and welcome
That is a very subjective question. Recovery often has a personality factor involved, ie, your personality plays a role, how you view certain things. Do you always tend to be on negative side, ie, always taking the bad views or are you more of an optimistic person?
But basically, a typical journey is kinda like:
1. You become more and more convinced nothing is wrong with your sleep.
2. You start accepting whatever sleep you get. Any sleep, even zero sleep due to a disruption which is normal in life and often temporary, is normal sleep.
3. You begin normalizing every feeling, thought or sensation, no matter how unpleasant they seem. Those thoughts or feelings are still the same, but how you view them changes with time. You start becoming comfortable with discomfort and no longer try to fight or avoid it.But at the end of the day, sleep is simple. There is nothing to figure out and nothing to fix. It often happens with a complete lack of effort (trying less). On the contrary, it does not respond to efforts (and therefore cannot be controlled consciously) but the only thing that tends to influence it is routine. Things like getting into and out of bed at regular times, eating at regular times, having appropriate light exposure at appropriate times etc. These things affect your circadian rhythm and sleep is a part of it.
I hope you find your way to peaceful rest soon.
Hello Sleep and everyone
It’s important to realize that worrying about anything, including sleep, doesn’t actually cause insomnia. Because people usually develop insomnia from zero worry about sleep to recovering from it, even when worrying about it. The body processes every thought or worry in exactly the same way, so you could worry about work, family or anything else including sleep and still sleep well. It doesn’t matter what the aggravating factor is, your body will do what it needs to do and that includes breathing, drinking, eating, peeing, pooping and yes, sleeping too.
Recovering from insomnia is kinda like riding a rollercoaster. It’s extremely exciting perhaps fearful the first time which is normal, but when you keep doing it, which is what exactly anyone would do in regards to sleeping, you become accustomed to it, you just begin normalizing every thought or feeling, no matter how unpleasant they are and feelings or thoughts are always inherently safe, you begin accepting them as normal and you think less and less about them until you completely forgot how unpleasant and uneasy they used to make you feel.
Hello there!
There is nothing to “recover” from actually. The struggle continues mainly because of the rigid conditions you set for yourself, for example,
1. Napping is strictly forbidden because night time sleep MUST be protected, at all costs.
2. Only night time sleep is allowed and “normal”. Sleeping at other times is “abnormal”.
What not adopt a completely carefree attitude towards sleep? Trusting the entire process will work itself out. That your body knows how and when to sleep and how to keep you awake when you absolutely must. And that sleeping at any time when it’s safe and convenient, is nothing to be ashamed of. Mainly because sleep doesn’t need any kind of “protection”. Even if you try to “protect” it doesn’t guarantee you will get it either, because you still fear not getting it.
